Tessa Munt MP: speeches

Speeches

• 13 Nov 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

  More

  Some of my constituents have had valuable property stolen from their homes during viewings, and have come to discover that the so-called potential buyers or tenants were not who they purported to be. Estate agents usually check the financial readiness and capacity of potential buyers and tenants, but can we have a debate on the need for estate agents to verify the names and addresses of the people they introduce to new properties, regardless of whether they will be accompanied to a viewing by the agent, so we can stop this brass-necked daylight robbery?

• 13 Nov 2025 · Police Reform · Hansard source

  More

  I welcome this statement. I have always been opposed to diverting taxpayers’ money to police and crime commissioners and their offices, and away from officers who can fight rural crime in our area. I have a couple of concerns. First, what will happen if a police force area like mine is split between two mayors? Secondly, could the Minister write to me to confirm the number of police officers that Avon and Somerset force might expect to employ, and to say whether this will happen by the end of the decade? Rumour has it that the previous police and crime commissioner had 28 or 29 staff, which is a lot of money.

• 12 Nov 2025 · Nolan Principles · Hansard source

  More

  It is absolutely apparent from looking at the Public Office (Accountability) Bill, which is known as the Hillsborough law, that it will create enormous pressure on any number of bodies, particularly the employment tribunal, which I understand has tens of thousands of cases waiting. I could list any number of others, but I shall not do so now. I hope I will have an opportunity to explain that in my planned meeting with the Minister, but it is crucial that people have someone independent to go to so that they do not end up in the employment tribunal, where they will be roundly trashed and lose not only their reputation, but their way of earning a living.

• 11 Nov 2025 · Prisoner Releases in Error · Hansard source

  More

  The day before Prime Minister’s questions last week, we spent hours discussing the Public Office (Accountability) Bill. Bearing in mind that there has been such a crash in public trust and confidence, has the Lord Chancellor considered that it might have been better to have referred to the fact that he knew there was a mistaken release of a prisoner in the offing? He might not have been able to give the details, but to restore public trust and confidence, and in light of the Public Office (Accountability) Bill, might it not have been better to have said something, and to have held over that decision and said he would come back to the House later with more detail?

• 4 Nov 2025 · Sudan: Government Support · Hansard source

  More

  Returning to the conference, is the Minister absolutely certain that all the actors in the region were part of the conference? There has been reference to the United Arab Emirates, and there are other actors in that region who did not seem to be on the list of people she mentioned who might have been here in April.

• 4 Nov 2025 · Sudan: Government Support · Hansard source

  More

  Will the Minister give way, on that point?

• 4 Nov 2025 · Sudan: Government Support · Hansard source

  More

  rose —

• 3 Nov 2025 · Public Office (Accountability) Bill · Hansard source

  More

  Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I sought to pick up on the Minister’s and Prime Minister’s intention of ensuring that the Bill is as strong as it can be. The Bill should cover contractors in the private sector as well as the public sector, as was mentioned, if it is to have real teeth and ensure that wrongdoing is fully investigated and that wrongdoers are brought to account. Will the Minister meet me and whistleblowers to explore the scope of this Bill?

• 3 Nov 2025 · Public Office (Accountability) Bill · Hansard source

  More

  May I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, and particularly to my role as vice-chair of WhistleblowersUK, a not-for-profit organisation? The Bill places new obligations of transparency and frankness on public authorities and officials, leaving them nowhere to hide from public scrutiny of their actions. I absolutely applaud those aims. We have been offered the opportunity to strengthen the Bill, and I have a contribution to make that stems from more than a decade of listening to whistleblowers. The UK has no proper law on whistleblowing or for protecting whistleblowers. Section 43B of the Employment Rights Act 1996, which was introduced by the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998, gives a measure of protection from detriments to workers and employees who make what are termed “public interest disclosures”. However, that provision treats such detriments as essentially employment matters; it does not once use the words “whistleblowing” or “whistleblower” and does not extend beyond workers and employees. It is highly technical, puts all sorts of barriers and difficulties in the way of workers and employees who make public interest disclosures, focuses exclusively on the employment context, and rarely—if ever—leads to any wider investigation of the substantive matters about which the worker or employee makes a disclosure. The Public Office (Accountability) Bill misses an opportunity: it could and should have recognised the important role played by whistleblowers in ensuring accountability. The whistleblower is, or should be, the best friend of every chief executive officer, every board, and every Minister. Whistleblowers want to see an end to crime, corruption and cover-up; they do not want to be fired for raising their concerns. Almost everyone will recognise the major scandals in which whistleblowers have reported what was happening again and again but have not been believed or, worse, have been invited or forced to leave their role. The case against whistleblowers is all about protection of reputation and the imbalance of power, and I recognise entirely what the hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sorcha Eastwood) said. Explicit recognition was given to the role of whistleblowers in the ten-minute rule Bill introduced by the hon. Member for Liverpool West Derby (Ian Byrne) on 9 July 2025, with the support of the Hillsborough victims. Clauses 2, 5(1) and 9 in that Bill would have been of huge significance in advancing the protection of whistleblowers. For the first time in legislation, the Bill gave explicit recognition to whistleblowing—a word which had hitherto not featured in the legislative lexicon. The ten-minute rule Bill sought to extend the concept of public interest disclosures beyond employment law; it would have extended whistleblower protection to all who blow the whistle, many of whom will be outside the scope of employment law. If that Bill had proceeded, whistleblowing as a legal concept would have broken out of the confines of employment law. Clause 9 of the Public Office (Accountability) Bill requires public authorities to publish codes of ethics. It would be easy for the Government to take into their Bill the provision from the earlier Bill requiring public authority codes of ethics to recognise the need to protect whistleblowers. It is deeply disappointing and unfortunate that it does not, and I ask the Minister to address that point and amend the Bill in her mission to strengthen it. If that were to happen, it would be a start, but further reform would still be needed. First, the provision would apply only when the potential wrongdoer was a public authority within the scope of the Bill. Secondly, such protection as would be given would arise only indirectly through the existence of a code of ethics. Thirdly, the Bill would lack teeth to deal with breaches of the code of ethics. Fourthly, there would still be no mechanism for investigating and following up the wrongdoing that a whistleblower might have uncovered. There remains an urgent need to set up the office of the whistleblower, and to extend the Bill’s scope to include contractors in the private sector—

• 3 Nov 2025 · Public Office (Accountability) Bill · Hansard source

  More

  I welcome this Bill. Will the Prime Minister reassure me and my constituents that organisations that are contractors for public authorities and public bodies will also be covered the provisions of the Bill? It is important that where responsibilities are deferred to other bodies, they too are captured by the clauses in this Bill.

• 3 Nov 2025 · Public Office (Accountability) Bill · Hansard source

  More

  rose—

• 30 Oct 2025 · Infected Blood Compensation Scheme · Hansard source

  More

  I apologise, Madam Deputy Speaker. Can the Minister confirm that people will not have to wait and that those 10,573 registrations are only part of it, when we recognise that there are 30,000 victims?

• 30 Oct 2025 · Infected Blood Compensation Scheme · Hansard source

  More

  The Minister will see my pile of papers, which I hope are criticisms that I never have to raise again. I welcome his statement and the work being done, particularly by Sir Brian Langstaff and others. I also welcome his intention to listen to and work with the infected blood community. This scandal remains the worst treatment disaster in the history of our national health service, and it is a source of shame for successive Governments and for the health service. We have heard from our constituents, who have been let down by medical professionals and the NHS. In many cases, they were victims of deliberate malpractice and cover-up. All those warnings about unsafe blood were ignored and officials failed to inform patients. In many cases, those patients paid, or are still paying, with their lives. An estimated 30,000 victims suffered, and that suffering was compounded by the further injustice of having to wait decades for compensation. As of my latest data, I understand that six times as many people have died waiting for justice as have benefited from this scheme. I hope the Minister can update me with a slightly more accurate figure. Payments to date have been made at an infuriatingly glacial pace. I would like to ask the Minister about the timelines for delivering compensation. Can he reaffirm that all eligible victims—all 30,000—will receive compensation by 2029? Will he confirm that the consultation he will undertake will not delay in any way or affect the speed at which the payments are being made? More specifically, I have challenged him before about the 916 victims of the special category mechanism. Are they in a different state from the advice given in August last year? Have things changed completely from the situation in February this year, when the rules changed? I just want to check something that I am not entirely clear about. With the Infected Blood Compensation Authority, the current approach was that people could not apply for compensation, and you are now saying that they can and that they will not have to wait—

• 30 Oct 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

  More

  My constituent John appealed his business rate demand 13 months ago as the rateable value on his office is incorrect. He tells me that the business rate appeal is taking between a year and 18 months. Will the Leader of the House ask the relevant Minister to improve the check and challenge system to support businesses through what can be a real barrier to survival, let alone the growth that the Government desire?

• 29 Oct 2025 · Sentencing Bill · Hansard source

  More

  On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I want to put it on the record that there has unfortunately been a blip on today’s version of the Sentencing Bill’s amendment paper. While I did put my name to several new clauses, I did not put my name to amendments 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 11, 12, 22, 23, 31, 32, 33, 34 or 35.

• 29 Oct 2025 · Sentencing Bill · Hansard source

  More

  I would like to draw attention to two cases in my constituency, one of which I have spoken about before in this place, in which a lady called Lorraine lost her life. It involved somebody who was driving, possibly while looking at their mobile phone, and again, that person did not go to prison. It is tragic that my hon. Friend’s new clause has to set out things that to most of us would seem absolutely natural. Someone should not have to be told to stop, to report, and to phone the police—to do all those things. I think this new clause is necessary, but it is a terrible shame that we live in a world where people do not think that is the right way to behave.

• 28 Oct 2025 · Lasting Power of Attorney · Hansard source

  More

  I understood that someone could execute a power of attorney only if they had capacity, so if there had been a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s, that would not have been possible. Am I incorrect?

• 27 Oct 2025 · Regulation and Inspection of Funeral Services · Hansard source

  More

  rose —

• 27 Oct 2025 · Regulation and Inspection of Funeral Services · Hansard source

  More

  rose—

• 27 Oct 2025 · Regulation and Inspection of Funeral Services · Hansard source

  More

  My constituents would be really shocked to discover the lack of clarity in this matter. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, as part of the licensing regime, anyone undertaking a funeral service in the community should be clear about where bodies are kept and the various arrangements that are in play? I have heard some fairly dreadful things about arrangements for those who have passed away.

• 27 Oct 2025 · Regulation and Inspection of Funeral Services · Hansard source

  More

  Funeral directors deal with people at the most vulnerable time in their lives. It is not the time when somebody asks, “What is happening? Where is my loved one’s body? What are you going to do next?” All of that detail is assumed. When people are so vulnerable, they are highly unlikely to ask the questions that they really should ask, and that they would certainly ask if they were buying any other product or service.

• 23 Oct 2025 · Work of the County Court: Government Response · Hansard source

  More

  The report to which the Government are responding outlines that the county court is in complete crisis. As the hon. Member for Hammersmith and Chiswick (Andy Slaughter) said, the county court is where the majority of our constituents will encounter the justice system, and it is the Cinderella service of the justice system. Does he agree that it is under pressure and experiencing significant operational problems, that the state of disrepair of the buildings is absolutely emblematic of a system that is completely in crisis, and that more must be done to repair and reinstate these buildings? It is totally unfair that we should ask court staff, be that the judiciary or the staff who back up the judges, to work in those circumstances. It is appalling.

• 23 Oct 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

  More

  My constituent Phil is in the special category mechanism for the 916 people who were inexplicably excluded from the infected blood compensation scheme in February, even though the Government’s expert group said in August last year that they should be compensated. On 5 June, the Paymaster General said he would consider the compensation arrangements. I may have missed it—forgive me if I have—but I also asked for a list of conditions that might be included within that. Does he have an update for me, please?

• 23 Oct 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

  More

  The Chinook Justice Campaign presented a petition to Downing Street this week asking for transparency about the Mull of Kintyre crash in 1994. The Ministry of Defence at Boscombe Down grounded these Boeing Chinooks before the flight, but the special forces pilots were blamed by the RAF, only to be exonerated fully and given a posthumous apology by the Defence Secretary in 2011. Can the Leader of the House press the Defence Secretary, the Justice Secretary and the Victims Minister, the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones), to have compassion and meet the families, so that they can finally gain an understanding of what happened all those years ago?

• 14 Oct 2025 · Postural Tachycardia Syndrome · Hansard source

  More

  I thank the hon. Member for allowing me to intervene. My constituent Julie told me about her adult daughter, who has myalgic encephalomyelitis, or ME, and believes she also has PoTS. After struggling to find a specialist, Julie’s daughter finally got a GP referral to a consultant in Bristol, who said that PoTS was “a TikTok fashion” and refused her any testing. She had spent ages travelling and had a long wait, it was quite an effort to get around the building, and she was bed-bound for weeks as a result of the experience. That terribly dismissive approach left her unable to believe that she could try to get any other help, and I understand that that is not uncommon. What steps might be taken to ensure that people with complex, debilitating conditions can access informed and supportive specialist assessments?